Embarking on the journey of creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)? Let's delve into the essentials of planning an MVP, from understanding its core concept to the strategic steps involved in its successful execution.
When you think about an MVP, you should think about something ridiculously simple
The goal of a prelaunch startup is to launch quickly
- Get anyone using your product
- You don’t have to have a vision of how you get everyone using it, but just anyone interacting and seeing if they get value out of the product.
- Talk to your users, any of them, after you’ve launched this MVP and get feedback
Man 5: The more users you talk to, the bigger the problem gets
Do not solve the problem for all users
- If you have one user with a problem, find out if there is anyone else with the same problem
- Vision big, MVP small
- Grow, and retain
Building a lean MVP
In most cases, most people should be building a very lean MVP.
- You should be able to build it fast, in weeks, not months.
- Very limited functionality – condense down what your user needs to a very simple set of things.
Never ask users for features
The user’s job is to give you problems.
- If you clearly understand the problem you’re trying to solve, you don’t need to ask users to come up with features. If you think your MVP is special, you think it has to be perfect, and spend a lot of time tinkering with it, you will spend less time on it.
When Airbnb launched, there were no payments, no map view, and no video games.
Twitch launched as Justin.tv, which was an online reality TV show. There was only one channel, Justin, and if you didn’t like his life, you had to leave the website. The video was extremely low resolution.
How do you know if you have product-market fit?
When people start using your product so much that you stop thinking about new features or improving your conversion through funnels.
- You are literally just at a loss to serve the people who are coming to your product tomorrow.
Man 6: In the pharmaceutical space, will my users be scientists, or will they actually be patients?
Who are your users, and how do you differentiate between the two?
- Michael, you started the company, you know what you’re building, you have a problem to solve, and you know who has the problem
Remember that your MVP can start with a simple, simple website that explains what you do.
It’s helpful, when you talk to people, interact with people that they can refer back to something.
- So, that can be your start, and you can build that simple website in days, not weeks.
Some hacks for building an MVP extremely quickly
Time box your spec
- The spec is the list of stuff you need to build before you launch
- Write your spec down so you can be honest with yourself that you are changing your spec all the time
- Cut your spec if there’s too much non-important stuff
- Don’t fall in love with your MVP
- Once you have any, if you don’t have anything out in the world, it’s very easy to just delay
